MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- For the first time since he took over as Blues coach early in the 2018-19 season, Craig Berube will not be coaching in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
And it doesn't sit well after completing his fifth season.
Berube, who was an associate under Mike Yeo in 2017-18, finished under .500 for the first time as well after the Blues went 37-38-7 this past season.
It was a season in which defensively, the Blues just didn't play well enough to be a playoff team again, and as a result, two assistant coaches [Mike Van Ryn and Craig MacTavish] were let go, and now it's up to Berube, his remaining assistants and whoever they bring in to round out the coaching staff to get together with the management team and try to get the team back in form to make them a playoff team again, perhaps as early as next season.
Berube, who is 155-99-37 in St. Louis, discusses a variety of topics at his end-of-season press conference, including the disappointment of not being a playoff team, comments made by veterans of professionalism on the roster, losing two colleagues and more:
Opens with (jokingly):
You get two minutes. I talk to you guys all year. That's it.
What happened to your socks (Berube was not wearing any):
Nice Italian shoes, you don't put socks with them. That's the new style.
Two days to reflect after the season, some opening remarks on it, maybe disappointment on not being in the playoffs:
Definitely a huge disappointment. This team has been playoff-bound for a long time obviously. We have high expectations going into every season with making playoffs first and foremost and giving yourself a chance in the playoffs, and we failed that. We didn't play well enough as a team. That's really what it boils down to. We've always been a team here in the sum of our parts so much. That's how we're built. We just didn't manage that well enough as a coaching staff and as players. We've got to do a better job of it next year.
Justin Faulk mentioning the professionalism and little details slip. Do you think that?
Yeah definitely. That's a big part of it. Details and little things are very important to being a solid team and it goes a long way into winning. That starts in the summertime. What you're doing in the summer from a training standpoint and being ready to go at training camp, we've got to have a hard camp, we've got to have a competitive camp and that's going to lead into the season.
Mentioned eight-game losing streak and contract things going on early in the season with young guys (Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou), will it be beneficial to start a season with no contract issues, everybody knows where they're slotted as opposed to not knowing?
That does play into it, but that's excuses too in my opinion. People get paid and they deserve to get paid. That's why they get paid. Other guys, whatever contracts, it's a cap era and not everybody's going to get the contract. For me, that's an excuse not to be a good team. You should be happy for a person that gets a contract, not disappointed in them. Everybody plays the game because they love the game but they also want to get paid. That's part of it. We all know that. I'm not going to really say that was the big issue. That's an excuse.
Lost two assistants in Mike Van Ryn and Craig MacTavish, you have some vacancies now. How much influence do you think you're going to have on adding some new assistants and what will you be looking for?
Well obviously Doug [Armstrong] and I, management, we all have an influence on what kind of a coach we need going forward, what's best for the team. It's tough to lose coaches, and that's what happens, whether it would have been me or whoever. When you don't do well, that's what happens. You move on from coaches and you've got to make change. It's tough. It's not a good feeling. I've been with Ryno for a long time, I've got tons of respect for him, tons of respect for Craig MacTavish. I feel responsible for them not being here.
Anticipate hiring two assistants or one:
That'll be determined. Obviously we need a d-coach and that's really important. I'm sure we'll have talks here about what we want to do other than that.
As for the d-corps, what do need to change to get it back?
Mindset more than scheme-wise. Systems are systems. Everyone has their own system and it's about a mentality for me. Being aggressive, anticipating, working together, but the forwards are a big part of it, too. I felt like our forwards didn't do enough to help our 'D' out. There's a lot of times, so it goes both ways, and again, that's when I talk about team. You can't just (say), 'The 'D' weren't good. 'It's not like that. It's everybody. Goaltenders, defense, forwards, it's all working together and playing together and helping each other out. It's not about the schemes. It's just about a mindset. And it's about playing for each other and that's a team. You care about your teammate, you don't want to hang them out to dry. You turn a puck over, how hard are you working back because you turned it over to help that guy out now? And I didn't feel that we had enough of that.
How do you get the special teams (22nd on PP, 30th on PK) back in order?
Listen, the penalty kill did not get off to the right foot. We actually got it going in the right direction for a long time. It's hard to climb back up when you start off that bad, but we were really trending in the right direction. I believe that we will get that penalty kill straightened out. Again, it's a mindset, it's about being aggressive and knowing your job and I felt the PK dropped. We obviously moved on from some guys with trades and 'Borts' and 'Scandy' were a big part of the penalty kill a year ago, which was very good. We missed 'Scandy' this year but again, that happens. Injuries happen, other guys have to step up to do the job. Again, it's like defense, it's a mindset. It's hard to do penalty killing. It's a tough job. Defending's a tough job. Everybody wants to play with the puck and make plays and score goals, but defense is very important and it's hard to win without playing good defense and penalty kill. They go hand-in-hand.
Power play was up for most of season but a late drop-off:
Dropped off. Again, personnel a little bit, but power play's been good here for a long time, and I don't see an issue. We have new players that we had on the PP there down the stretch or the last couple months. I think it's a learning process for some of those guys how we do things on the PP here and I do believe guys are going to take another step next year, some young guys on the power play are going to be better.
Showed positive signs late in the season. Do you feel like you can turn this ship around pretty quickly?
Well, I think that everybody's on board with turning it around, and that's the key. Players, management, coaches, we all know what we've got to do to turn it around. Everybody's really disappointed and that disappointment's going to carry over a little bit to the off-season here and guys are going to work at it to come back and regain that form again, regain that Blues style of play that we had for so long.
Do you have a Step 1 in mind of how that process gets going?
I think the exit meetings here is Step 1, I believe. Obviously we had an exit meeting with the whole team. Doug Armstrong talked, I talked. It's not always fun talk for sure. It's stuff that guys don't like hearing and it's not easy, but it's important, and individual meetings with players from management and myself, what's expected of them next year.
Not a lot of flexibility under the cap moving forward, so is one message that the turnaround has to come from those players you just spoke to?
One-hundred percent. Our veterans have got to be better, OK, and our young guys got to be better, and young guys got to take more steps in improving and that starts in the off-season with their training coming in camp in great shape and ready to take another step.
What do you want to see out of Thomas and Kyrou going into next season now that their big contracts will kick in?
They've got to have great off-seasons with their training and obviously on-ice too, working at their game, getting better. For me, if you want to be a real good team and you want to have an opportunity to win, you have to sacrifice as an offensive player sometimes and you've got to do other things on the ice that shows the sacrifice to your teammates. It might hurt you on the stat-wise with points a little bit, but what's more important is winning, and if we want to be a championship team, we want to get in the playoffs next year, they've got to make sacrifices that way.
Seems like Kyrou wants to be a good defensive player, do you sense that or does he still have to buy in more?
I do sense that, and I thought he made steps towards it. I know his plus-minus doesn't show that, and that's not the end to be all, plus-minus. Things happen sometimes. He has the ability to do it, there's no doubt about it. The guy's got talent, tons of talent, and the way he skates from the checking side of things, he can do it because he can skate. All you've got to do is put the work in and he wants to do that. And it's a mindset again. I keep going back to that. He's never had to really do that, but he has to do it now. This is the NHL, it's not junior and I believe he will take those steps. He's a good kid. He wants to learn, he wants to be better, and he will, along with Robby Thomas.
Specifically, how can Kyrou get better knowing he can go in the d-zone and he can go in the o-zone and not turn it over?
Turnovers happen. Every team ... Connor McDavid ... offensive players will turn the puck over. They're trying to do things, which they should to score goals and to make plays, but it's what you do when you turn it over, OK. Do you wait there and see what happens or do ytou immediately have the reaction in your mind that I've got to get back and check now? I've got to get that puck back, and that's what he has to do. On my side of things as a coach, we have to work at that in practice more.
Does the Pavel Buchnevich playing center project continue?
'Buchy' I thought did a great job at center for a guy that has not played center since he was a kid I guess, I don't know. But I thought he did a pretty good job. I know the face-offs weren't great, and that's something that going forward, I talked to him about keep working on it, whether you're at center or not because it's always nice to have a couple guys that can take craws on each line. So he will continue to do that, but for me, I was happy. From an analytics standpoint, his analytics were excellent when you look at both sides of the puck. It maybe hurt his scoring a little bit, but other than that, he was putting other people in position to produce, which was good. He's a good play-maker, and on the other side of things, he was excellent defensively.
Right now, you have all 'A's. What kind of qualities do you look for in a captain?
You have to be an extremely hard worker and you've got to be a highly competitive person to be a captain because you cannot be a captain if you can't lead by example on the ice or off the ice. Those are the two biggest qualities.
Are there things you want to get better at as a coach?
Sure. I always try to get better. I've got to do a better job of trying to get to our younger players and help them grow as players, but also at the same time, keep that core veteran group motivated.
Maybe hang out with the media more?
Eh, I can do that. Maybe we can go for lunch. It's hard though when I get a free lunch here every day, unless you guys are going to buy!
Since Kyrou didn't score 50 goals -- he scored 37 -- does he have to sacrifice offense to become a better defensive player or can he still improve offensively right now to be a better two-way player?
Oh for sure. The guy's got potential. The ceiling, I don't know where it's at. I told you that before. The way the kid can skate and shoot and the speed, I'm not saying he can't score 50 goals and be a real good two-way player. That's unreal., but in doing that, like I said, he has to react quicker defensively, he has to want to get back quicker, he's got to want to defend harder and stronger, all those little things like that. Now if he gets to that point and with his speed to strip people from pucks and things like that, he's going to get other opportunities going the other way.
Not a ton of changes from last year to this year, when did you feel the mindset slip and why did it start to slip?
I felt early on in the season, I didn't like the first couple games we played. We weren't very good, but we won, our goalie, 'Binner' was excellent. We played an excellent game in Edmonton (a 2-0 win on Oct. 22). The Winnipeg game (a 4-0 loss on Oct. 24) really I thought set us back. The way we went out in that third period in Winnipeg, 'Greisser' was in net ... we didn't go out there to win the game. We went out there and just let them come at us and end up losing 4-2, I can't remember the score, and we went on a tough losing streak after that and I thought that really affected the team going forward. I know we won seven in a row after that, but I still didn't feel when we won seven in a row that we deserved to win seven in a row. I didn't feel we were playing that well. At the start of the season, I just didn't have that good feel.
On Colton Parayko going forward:
I thought that down the stretch, I thought he was a lot more aggressive with his game. I've said it 100 times, when he's thinking too much and not just using his feet and skating and closing plays out and being physical, again, he agreed with me, he was over-thinking things too much and trying to be too safe. And there's no reason for him to ever play that way. He's got all the abilities to be a great defender and produce for us offensively with his feet and his shot. He'll be a much better player next year.
Parayko's personality says he's a deep thinker. Is there a way to leave that off the ice?
I think when you put your skates on, you've got to have a little bit of a switch. When I played, I didn't want to go out and do what I had to do every night to be in the NHL and to be successful because it's not a fun job, but I knew when I put my skates on I had to turn a switch on, 'This is what I've got to do tonight,' and I think that's similae with him. He's a great guy, we all know that. He's the type of guy you want to be around 24/7, but when he puts his skates on, he's got to get that switch and say, 'Listen, I've got to be a tough defenseman tonight.' I'm not talking about fighting and things like that. I'm talking about just defending, being hard to play against, being hard on our net, that type of stuff.
Is that trusting your instincts?
Yeah definitely. If you over-think the game and you don't just go out and play and be aggressive, you start to over-think things, you start to second-guess yourself. You can't play that way.
With Binnington, 61 games is a lot. The numbers may not show it, but did he show you anything this year anyway?
He fought all year. I don't ever question 'Binner's fight, never have, never will. He's a competitive guy that has had to earn everything he's gotten. He's spent a number of years in the minors and came up and won a Cup here. It's a lot of games. I'd like to see that drop a little bit. I don't know where it's at right now, but again, he started the season off really well, and like our team, it slipped a bit on him and he probably takes too much on himself instead of just letting the game come to him. He wants to go out and do it because he wants to win for the team, and he's just got to do his job. Does that make sense? You can't do everybody's job. That goes along for everybody. Everybody just do your job out there and everything will take care of itself.
Is that the sole reason why his numbers were reflective because he was trying to do everyone else's job?
No, I think it got in his head a little bit maybe that things weren't going well with the team. Then his game slipped a little bit. I thought he regained it back though. He's a fighter, he's going to regain it back. Last person I'm worried about is Binnington.